Huge Ontario Lake Trout Caught Ice Fishing Almost Too Big For Hole

We all know Ontario lake trout get big, but dang!

Five friends were gathered around a hole looking down through 12 inches of ice as their sixth friend, Barry Larson, fought one of the biggest Ontario lake trout of his life. As they watched the battle on Clearwater West Lake near Atikokan, Ontario, they almost couldn’t believe what they were looking at.

At first pass by the hole, none of them thought the lake trout that Larson had hooked was actually going to fit through the hole! When the big fish was finally landed it took a team effort.

“He finally swam (past) the hole, so I grabbed my gaff and gaffed him in the tail,” said Larson in an interview with the Duluth News Tribune. He went on to say that one of his buddies also grabbed a gaff, and with both their efforts, brought the big fish out of the lake.

For a lake trout, the fish was huge, and measured 45.5 inches long and 28 inches in girth. At Chalstrom’s Bait and Tackle, just north of Duluth, Minnesota, it was certified at 38 pounds exactly, three days after it was caught.

The owners of Chalstrom’s was happy to report that he had never seen an Ontario lake trout as big as that one.

Even though this fish is a true giant, it was several pounds shy of the ice fishing record. That fish stands at 40 pounds and 44 inches long on the same body of water back in 1987.